By Sonny Tapia
The men’s water polo team played two games in the tournament held at Haldeman Pool on the Pomona-Pitzer campus and in the Claremont-Mudd-Scripps’ Axelrood Pool.
In their first game, The Beach faced off against the Concordia University Eagles and showed a powerful offense from start to finish.
CSULB junior attacker Rafael Real Vergara scored in the first 18 seconds of the game with a close range shot.
Just 32 seconds after that goal, Long Beach State sophomore attacker Connor Mannion scored the second goal of the game with an assist coming from freshman utility player Bruno Chiappini.
Throughout the game, it seemed one sided from the start due to the constant scoring from the LBSU players.
10/1/22: Claremont, CA- LBSU sophomore attacker Abdelrahman Soliman takes aim at the goal before scoring against Concordia in the Gary Troyer Tournament on Saturday. Photo credit: Sonny Tapia
Long Beach head coach Gavin Arroyo said before the game that he wanted the team to continue taking it seriously.
“We want to come into games with a specific idea on what to do. We need to be more disciplined and have a personal, serious attitude,” Arroyo said.
The discipline shined through the team when the score at half time was 19-3. Both offense and defense in the game were controlled by Long Beach.
Concordia players showed visible disappointment when it became a showering of goals throughout the game.
“We just couldn’t stop the shots. We had a good rotation, but it didn’t really show up,” Concordia junior goalie Hunter Osgood said.
10/01/22: Claremont, CA- Defense plays a key part in the Gary Troyer Tournament as LBSU sophomore utility player Raul Morales defends against Concordia on Saturday. Photo credit: Sonny Tapia
Finally, when the buzzer signaled the end of the game, Long Beach came out on top with a score of 27-8.
“This game definitely set the stage for what we want to accomplish in the upcoming weeks,” LBSU junior center Jason O’Donnell said. “It set the tone for the team.”
When asked what he felt went right in the game, O’Donnell answered with confidence that the team’s attitude was something that worked in the game even though it wasn’t the toughest opponent the team has faced.
He had scored two goals in the win by targeting the corners of the goal and attacking open spaces.
Once the game finished, The Beach then walked across the street to play the Fresno Pacific University Sunbirds in the final game of the tournament.
10/1/22: Claremont, CA- LBSU sophomore utility player Raul Morales takes a shot at the goal against Fresno Pacific on Saturday in the Gary Troyer Tournament. Photo credit: Sonny Tapia
This game showed similarities to the first from offense to defense, with the team starting the game off strong once again by scoring 25 out of 33 shots.
Mannion had a scoring frenzy, making four out of five shots on goal along with his teammate sophomore center Garrett Potter who made three goals in the game.
Long Beach scored eight goals in two of the quarters against Fresno Pacific and would hold onto another dominating victory, 25-5.
A stand out player of the tournament for LBSU was senior utility player Jose Loubriel, who scored six goals for the day.
The team had a hold on the game through its play when handling and away from the ball.
10/01/22: Claremont, CA- LBSU sophomore attacker Abdelrahman Soliman fires the ball toward the net in the water polo game on Saturday. Photo credit: Sonny Tapia
“Offensively the counters were pretty good and defensively we held good pressure on them the whole time,” Loubriel said.
The Beach will face off against the University of the Pacific Tigers on Saturday, Oct. 8 at the Ken Lindgren Aquatics Center at 7 p.m. game.
